Late-Term Abortion Provider Target of Multiple Investigations

Operation Rescue has filed a complaint with the Kansas Board of Healing Arts against Dr. George Tiller, one of the few remaining late-term abortion providers in the United States. This is the latest in a string of actions taken by anti-abortion groups against the Kansas doctor.

The complaint alleges that Tiller performed an abortion on a patient without obtaining legal consent and that his employees falsely estimated the age of the fetus in order to circumvent the law, according to the Kansas City Star.

Tiller currently faces 19 misdemeanor counts brought by Attorney General Paul Morrison charging that he relied on a physician with financial ties to him for required consultation on late-term abortion cases. Tiller’s lawyers said “there was nothing illegal in the relationship” between Tiller and the outside physician, the Los Angeles Times reports.
They have filed a brief contesting the constitutionality of the required consultation. Similar requirements have been struck down by the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts.

A county judge recently ruled that a citizen-petition drive led by anti-abortion group Kansans for Life to impanel a grand jury to investigate Tiller, who adamantly denies all of the allegations and charges against him, would move forward. Tiller’s lawyers called the campaign to impanel a grand jury against him a "vigilante effort" waged by "individuals who have no interest in what the law is, but with trumpeting a political agenda," according to the Wichita Eagle. The grand jury is set to convene on October 30.

Tiller has faced decades of anti-abortion harassment, intimidation, and violence. In 1986 his clinic was bombed and in 1993 he was shot through both arms by an extremist with ties to the Army of God. This summer, his clinic had to shut down for a month after vandals tried to flood the building with a hose. The Feminist Majority Foundation has worked with Tiller for years to protect him and his patients.

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